


They Say Love is the Strongest Spell

by BabySnoopy



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, Fluff, Magic, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 19:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18505351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabySnoopy/pseuds/BabySnoopy
Summary: when the slytherin boy says he wants to learn about the muggle world from a half-blood like you but is actually more interested in learning about who you are





	They Say Love is the Strongest Spell

**Author's Note:**

> i fell into an endless rabbit hole of missing minho all of a sudden,, then someone from tumblr requested this and i began hacking away until i got to 4k words and i had to take a breath. i find that i usually struggle with more elaborate stories longer then 2k but for some reason i feel super proud of this one?? bless i hope i keep practicing to get better
> 
> also pls interact w me on tumblr: skydivingstars.tumblr.com

Empty libraries, empty dorms, empty corridors, and most importantly; an almost empty dining hall, save for the couple of kids in the opposite corner from where you sat. It was a little strange to see the never-ending wooden tables so bare, cutlery being only set for the nine or ten of you that stuck around for summer break. But the silence was bliss. Nobody shoving your shoulder trying to hop into their seat, nobody testing some new spell and bringing a gross version of dinner to life, and nobody speaking to you when you didn’t feel like it.

Though you think you’ve jinxed yourself when you feel the bench you sat on slightly shift. To your left, you see a boy already half way in, swinging his other leg around to get comfortable right next to you, your knees almost touching. Why he didn’t want to sit somewhere else or at least leave a little space in between you both, you weren’t sure and frankly you didn’t really want to strike up a conversation to ask why.

But his eyes are glued onto you and you feel somewhat intruded, growing ten times as self-conscious just trying to slurp the soup from the spoon. He doesn’t seem to move, doesn’t reach out to start having his meal so you finally cave.

“Sorry but do I know you?”

Even without his robe, all it takes is one look at his face to know he was a Slytherin. All the tell-tale signs lie in the way he doesn’t flinch when you confront him. How his chin rests on his interlaced fingers propped up by his elbows on the table and how his head inclines slightly to the side. Most of all, it’s the teasing glint in his eyes that you recognise, amplified by the floating candlelights above.

“Me? Don’t you know this face?” He smirks now, moving in a little closer to you invading all means of personal space. “Head boy of Slytherin house?” He says it like it should mean something but you just shrug.

“Wouldn’t know you unless you live in the library.” You turn back to reach out for the bronze goblet, its contents filling itself up with orange juice. “Plus, I’m not really good at remembering the names of pretty boys.”

“Ah,” he retreats to his previous stance, no longer leaning towards you. “Then you best stay away from Hyunjin. 

So, I’m Minho and you  _can_  actually often find me in the third aisle of the muggle section.” Finally, he starts to dig into his dinner. “Man, how do muggles manage to do  _anything_ without magic?”

“My mom did.” Those were meant to be your last words before you left. You were blatant about your heritage and you might’ve said it to stop him from talking to you, to get him to distance himself from you, as any other Slytherin would really.

Minho doesn’t say anything for a moment, as you expect, and you think you’ve done the trick. But just as you’re about to get up and retreat back into the comfort of your room, Minho says something that catches you by surprise. 

“So you’re half-blood, then?” There’s nothing accusing in his voice. Nothing sarcastic or even insulting. It’s as though you just told him what your favourite colour was, something along the lines of any other trivial fact. “Neat.”

Maybe you didn’t want to get up and leave just yet.

* * *

 

To your surprise, you actually do find Minho in the third aisle of the muggle section, convincing yourself that you’re just walking around to get a break from that biography you were so wrapped up in. You slightly peak your head around one of the towering shelves but Minho glanced up at that second, hyperaware of his surroundings, and he waves the second he locks eyes with you, patting the space next to him on the floor where he sat.

“Look at this,” he eagerly points towards the flimsy text he has in his hands. At first you think it was just a muggle newspaper, the ones in which the images didn’t move, but upon a closer look you almost giggle when you find out it is, in fact, an old pamphlet for all the best deals of an electronics store you used to tag along with your mom to.

“A hairdryer?” Your eyebrow is raised in amusement.

His stare lingers at the image a little longer before looking up at you. “So, what? It dries your hair?”

“As the name suggests, yes.”

“Whoa, that’s so cool.” 

He doesn’t stop there. Minho proceeds to show you and ask about every item on the pages he’s dog-eared, utterly fascinated with all that you had to say. An electronic he was particularly fond of were fans, bewildered by the fact they could come as huge blades spinning on the ceiling or as small handheld ones that fit snug in your hands.

It’s endearing, the way that he asks you about all of these things so shamelessly and you find that this was so refreshing.

“You know,” you start to say, then getting a little distracted as Minho closes the pamphlet, takes out his wand, and mutters a very soft  _wingardium leviosa_ to return it to the shelf along with other muggle artefacts, one of which you noticed was a thick old yellow pages that you haven’t seen for ages.

You continue, “With that sort of excitement, you might have easily been sorted into Ravenclaw.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” he chuckles. “Though I kinda wish I were, would’ve met you sooner.”

Now  _that_ is exactly why he was sorted into Slytherin instead. “Never mind. I take back what I said.”

You quickly get up, dusting off your lap and Minho follows suit. “Hey, if you think about it, it’s a little sad we’re spending our summer break cooped up in this dusty old library.”

It didn’t really seem to pose as a problem to you, but you know he’s inquiring something further. “What do you suggest?”

“Take me out.”

“Out?”

“To the muggle world.”

It’s a peculiar request, you think, a little bit wary if there were any ulterior motives. But the way his eyes don’t seem to let yours wander tell you he’s being genuine. As innocent and genuine as a Slytherin can be. 

“Why me?” You narrow your eyes, curling your toes hoping you don’t hear another lame pick-up line. 

“I mean, one, you’re in Ravenclaw, who best to learn from than someone from the house that asserts  _all_  their intellectual superiority.” You roll your eyes at the way his hands perform grand gestures, waving into the air to add to his exaggeration. “And two, you’re a half-blood. You’ve lived in the muggle world, right? You’d know it best.” 

Minho manages to surprise you again. He’s not joking anymore. You’ve never heard anyone tell you anything good about being half magical and half not and you think the summer heat has somehow snuck into the library and made home around your face.

When you don’t answer, Minho turns away sheepishly, raising his arm to rub the back of his neck like he’s a bit hesitant to say what he wanted next. “I’ve actually never been.” 

Then he brings his hand to point accusingly at you. “But don’t tease me for it! My parents are just... old school.”

You never thought there would come a day in which you would think someone, who came from a house with literally a serpent as their very emblem, adorable. And here he was.

You nod your head. “Okay, meet me out front tomorrow morning.”

* * *

 

Minho is a little cautious. “An amusement park?” He repeats, taking some time to mull over its meaning, scanning all the muggle-related information he crammed into his brain last night. “A park for... amusement?” You notice him clutch onto the straps of the drawstring backpack he had on and you couldn’t help but think he looked like a little kid out on his first field trip. 

You hum in response, checking your watch to see how much longer till the train arrives. You can’t remember the last time you’ve been to an amusement park and you admit you lost a bit of sleep last night from overexcitement. 

This was an amusement park that was special to you; the first one you’ve ever been. Although you wouldn’t boast about it, comparing it to your grandiose Disneyland, there was something so rich in the old heritage attractions. Perhaps the rides weren’t known for shooting straight into the sky and maybe on the thrill level, it could score a solid 3 out of 5 if you’re optimistic, but you think it’s muggle-enough for Minho, un-magical enough too. 

You hear the whistle of the train before you see it and Minho is bouncing in his steps as he walks towards the platform.

“Wait, there’s one rule though,” you slightly grab onto him to make him turn back to you.

He eyes your fingers, gently clutching onto his wrist. “Hold your hand so I don’t get lost?” 

You follow his gaze to see where he was looking and you pull away immediately, exhaling loudly to mask how quickly you flustered up.

Clearing your throat, you firmly tell him, “no magic.” 

Minho groans, shaking his shoulder like an ill-tempered child and then proceeds to bother you in any way he can throughout the whole train ride to the muggle world.

* * *

 

The park is unlike anything Minho has ever seen before. From the entrance, what he was staring at, essentially, was a magnified version of all the little nuts and bolts of machines he read about that televisions and fans were made of. To his left there’s a huge structure in the shape of a pendulum. He hears its machine whirring to life as the, what you called ‘ride’, swung back and forth with screaming people strapped onto the bottom of it. If he didn’t know better, he might have easily mistaken it for a torture device.

Further down he sees a very fancy attraction. It was circularly shaped and its roof pointed up, lined with huge light bulbs, one of which flickered like it was about to go out. The ride itself, Minho believes, consisted of shiny unicorn-like statues - some without a horn, he notes - moving in a circular motion, each animal rising and falling on its own in place; much less extreme than the pendulum before. 

Glancing around, there’s a kid laughing with one hand in his mom’s and the other holding a pink cloud. His curiosity grows when he watches the child lick this cloud. Minho is in awe and for the first time in his life, he is rendered speechless. Maybe this was the very feeling muggles felt when they witness magic for the first time.

But the very fact that the muggles built all of this, by their own hands without magic, astounded him the most. He looks over at you, still conversing with the lady at the ticketing booth and thinks to himself how lucky you are, that half of your being was capable of eliciting a magical feeling, without even needing the magic itself.

Before he can take in more of what he saw, you run back to him, waving the tickets in the air with the biggest grin on your face and Minho feels as though someone put a hex on his heart, making it swell and sit uncomfortably in his chest, as though it didn’t fit anymore.

“Let’s do this one first!” You lead the way towards a little red and white-striped tent and Minho feels relieved you didn’t drag him to those big, scary rides first. 

There were two tables in this tent, one that you, as players, were meant to stay behind of and the other placed quite a distance away, at the back of the tent. Placed on those tables at the far back were pyramids made of cans and Minho watches the couple next to him throw some balls at it, and Minho realises the aim of the game.

The man who seemed to be running the booth had a very large moustache and a very ugly top hat, though he hands you three balls with a friendly smile. Minho lets you go first, wants to watch you as you grab one and threw it as hard as you could, missing the structure by a lot. 

“Wait,” you defend, tying up your hair now as though this was your serious game mode. “I’m usually good at this.” You take another ball and he watches you steadily aim it, throw it - and only hit one can. 

At the same time, the couple beside Minho knocked out all the cans at once and he watches as moustache-man brings out a huge stuffed cat from under the table and hands it to them. The competitiveness in his blood was beginning to boil and something in him really wants that stuffed cat.

So when you take the last ball into your hands, Minho secretly grabs hold of the wand he kept in the waist of his jeans. He knows he told you he’d leave it in his bag but it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. When you lift your arm, ready to fling the ball, Minho casts his spell in sync. 

Minho could see moustache-man shake his head slightly in certainty that your aim wouldn’t even graze one of the cans, but when Minho’s spell binds, the ball seems to make a slight curve mid-air and you cock your head in confusion. Even  _you_ knew that was a bad throw so you’re ready to suspect that this was the work of magic. Although the sound of all the cans clanking to the ground should’ve made you excited, you turn to glare at the conniving Slytherin Minho was, but instead you see him with a smile stretching from ear to ear as he held his arms out, happily ready to receive the stuffed cat.

Learning about the muggle world was not a lie for Minho, not really. Of course, he was excited to learn that the unicorn ride was called a carousel and that the people on the pendulum machine were screaming out of excitement and  _not_  pain. But what kind of Slytherin would he be if he  _didn’t_ have an ulterior motive? 

What he really came for, was to learn about you. He learns that you’re actually softer than the tough exterior you keep up, face gone pale as snow after the haunted house ride. He learns that the spinning rides make you too nauseous and that you were really good at bumper cars. He also finds out that you also really liked the pink cloud he saw that kid eating before and that you called it ‘cotton candy’.

“We’ll get one after this last ride,” you say as you drag him, hand in hand, to the only rollercoaster in the park. “Saved the best for last!”

But he must’ve been so caught up in trying to savour the look of anticipation on your face that it is only when you both are up front in the queue that Minho notices the narrower railway tracks that lined the outskirts of the entire park. As you both shuffled forward, he watches as new passengers hop into some sort of vehicle, get securely strapped in, and then rides all the way up, up, and up, followed by the screams when it goes down.

Minho does some quick math and it seems as though you both might be able to get on in the next batch. The thought make his stomach queasy and his mind dizzy. Suddenly, he’s stiff as though someone’s cursed his legs, preventing them from moving and he doesn’t know what to say.

“Alright, next ten!” The man up front calls. You skip forward, excited that it’s finally your turn to get on but as you try to pull Minho’s arm along, he doesn’t budge. It’s only after you notice his clenched fists and his white knuckles, that you weren’t going to be getting on this ride anytime soon. 

So you lead him away from the queue, gently hooking your arm into his elbow and you bring him far, far away from the ride. You make him sit down at a bench as you go and buy that cotton candy you promised and when you get back, you’re relieved to find Minho breathing normally and not moving around like some robot. 

You don’t ask anything but Minho feels as though he needed to explain himself and it’s a foreign thing to him, to feel embarrassed. 

“I’m actually, uh, scared of heights.”

You pinch at the cotton candy that Minho is holding, stuffing another mouthful. “How do you manage when you play Quidditch though?”

“I don’t play Quidditch.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t,” Minho insists. 

“But I swear I’ve seen you around the practices?”

“Oh,” he laughs to himself and you’re glad it’s not shaky. “I just hang around there when my friends are playing cause all the girls hang around there. Makes me look cooler.” You shove him with your whole upper body, knocking your shoulder against his. “Guess I should’ve been trying to look cool in the library.”

You hum, “I like guys who are more cute than cool, though.”

“Oh? So if I-” He shoves the cotton candy into your grasp and fishes his wand with his other hand. “ _Orchideus_ ,” he whispers and a bouquet of flowers spring to life in his very clutch. Your eyes are bulging, looking around you to see if anyone saw Minho do the one thing you told him not to.

“Minho!” You hissed.

But he smiles, too sweetly, his head slightly inclining to the side like he’s got a secret he wants to tell you but can’t. 

“Admit it, it can’t get any more cuter than this, right?”

* * *

 

Adventures to the muggle world become a regular thing throughout the break and simultaneously, Minho gets to discover all the hidden crevices and dusty corners of your soul. 

A week before summer break ends, you’re awakened by yelling coming from the window and when you look out to see where the distant noise was coming from, you find Minho at the bottom of the tower, frantically waving his arms to get your attention. 

You mutter an angry “ _lumos”_ as you begrudgingly trudge all the way down from the dorms to see what he wanted, the faint light coming from your wand enough to make you squint.

Unlike you, he was undeniably delighted to see you all groggy and you see that there’s not a trace of sleepiness in him.

“Since we’ve spent all summer break with  _you_ taking  _me_ on fun trips to the muggle world, I decided, out of my own kindness, to repay the favour by taking  _you_  to one of  _my_  favourite places.”

You didn’t like the overdone enthusiasm of his voice but he leaves you no choice, yanking you by the hand with a grip that your sleepy self couldn’t bother resisting.

After what seems like eons of navigating through the school grounds in such darkness, accompanied by Minho’s purposeful off-key singing, you finally stop. The very atmosphere of where you were was enough to jolt you awake. Even the warm summer nights couldn’t overlay the feeling of dreariness that surrounded the space before you.

“Minho, this is the forbidden forest.”

“Correct.”

“No, thank you. Goodbye.” You try to flee, try to dig your feet into the ground to stop Minho from dragging you in but he was a lot stronger than you were, keeping a firm arm around you and holding your shoulders still. He tries to reassure you by repeatedly telling you that there wasn’t actually anything scary about the forest, but he’s all giggly as you writhe in his embrace, entertained by your state of discomfort.

Eventually when you’ve lost hope in keeping out of the forest, you switch to the opposite of the spectrum and you cling onto Minho like he was the only lifeline to you. He was surprised for a second, the moment you grabbed onto his torso and fisted the cloth of his shirt, but then he rubs your back, making sure that you knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Can you sing again?” You mumble into his body. The silence was so creepy and you didn’t appreciate the distant sound of creatures you’ve never heard before. You didn’t really want to see what was ahead of you either, afraid that your fear would manifest somehow.

“But you told me to stop cause I was off-key.”

“Just sing!”

“Oh wait, we’re here,” Minho says and you let go. You never knew there was a huge lake that stretched out in the depths of the forest, but the waters were opaque and the mist that lingered above it made it impossible to see the other side. 

Minho then peels you off of him to go look for something and you’re scrambling after him in panic. When it seems as though he’s found it, he lifts his wand and directs it at the tree trunk he stood near and after muttering a spell you could barely register, the tree trunk reveals the outline of a small door, like some sort of cabinet. 

From this strange tree trunk cabinet, Minho pulls out, to your disbelief, a picnic basket. It’s as though Minho aimed to embody all sorts of cliches he picked up watching muggle movies, setting up a mat, some candles, and even taking out chocolate-covered strawberries. If you weren’t being eaten up by your fear, you would have made fun of him to no end.

But it is the fact that you  _didn’t_ that makes Minho take notice of the goosebumps prominently present on your arm and steadily climbing up your neck. He fondly remembers the way you took care of him when he couldn’t face his fear of heights, how gently you dealt with him and how patient you were for not even expecting an explanation. So he gets up, waves his wand around the area of the picnic mat, and chants several  _protego_ spells, so you felt somewhat safer.

It takes a little bit to adjust to having a picnic in a scary forest that’s almost pitch dark but the moment Minho starts talking, you let all your attention focus only on him. And you were happy to, for Minho was all the things you never expected him to be and you know that there’ll be more from him that you won’t see coming.

When he offers you the last strawberry as a joke and then snatches it out of your reach and into his own mouth, his laugh echoes between the trees and it is a sound so healing that it might have the power to bring life to these bare branches. Then he says your name, with a fragility you haven’t heard before.

“If I asked you to run away with me, would you?”

You don’t let Minho surprise you anymore but you wouldn’t go as far to say you could read him like an open book. His eyes are nervously darting between you and the lake, his foot tapping restlessly against some tree bark.

“What about your old school parents?”

“They’re exactly why I’m asking you,” he says quietly and it doesn’t take you long to know what he means, recalling the countless times his parents have tried to stop the two of you from seeing each other over the past couple weeks.

“Come here,” you say as you pat your lap and Minho comes to lay his head on you in a heartbeat. Your fingers comb through his hair and you let the pad of your thumb trace his lips. Even if you had spent all summer being the one to take Minho and show him a world he’s never seen before, you’re always going to feel as though it is he who has given you more. 

“I’ll follow you anywhere.”


End file.
